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Abandoned Luxury Condos Morph Into Affordable Housing

With the downturn in the housing market, a planned luxury condo tower in Downtown San Diego has been reworked into an affordable housing development.

"Thanks to the nearly flat-lined downtown real estate market, what was supposed to be a luxury condominium tower is morphing into a landmark low-income apartment project.

Goodbye KB Homes, the national developer who got approval in April 2006 for a ritzy 184-unit condo design on B Street between 10th and 11th avenues.

Enter a San Diego firm planning to tweak that blueprint into 226 apartments for families who earn less than $42,000 a year. The tower, which will be the tallest affordable-housing project in the county, is called Ten Fifty B and is expected to be built by early 2010.

Downtown's redevelopment agency loves the project, enough to lend the developer $34 million. It will be the agency's largest-ever investment in an affordable-housing complex."

Comments

Comments

Typical San Diego greed

It's ironic that these and other new affordable housing units will "reclaim" the ones lost over the past five years by displacement in downtown San Diego, as a result of over-gentrification and voracious redevelopment activities.

Amazing to see what a speculative condo glut can do to a Sunbelt "metropolis" in the course of two years!

After the damage wrought by the real estate nightmare last year, hopefully San Diego will finally be able to shake it's notorious image as an pseudo-urban playground for wealthy suburbanites and vacationers, and evolve into a mature, diverse, and cosmopolitan city.